


Cruelty and Madness

by lostinalaska



Category: Robin Hood (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-13
Updated: 2011-04-13
Packaged: 2017-10-18 00:45:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/183130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostinalaska/pseuds/lostinalaska
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If this was Hell... well, she supposed that it could be Hell.  She'd expected flames and torture, but maybe this was torture enough.  Maybe having to see the consequences of her actions clearly over and over was her penance for destroying Guy, for bringing him to the brink of insanity and pushing him over.</p><p>Well, then, if this was Hell she had one comfort coming...</p><p>Surely he'd join her eventually.</p><p>Murder was a nearly unforgivable sin, after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cruelty and Madness

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own my own words and ideas, but not the characters or premises on which they are based. Those belong, in this case, to the BBC.
> 
> A/N: Okay, so I haven't seen much of this show, but I've seen enough, and the last episode of series 2, and I am pissed off. Not just that Marian's dead, but that anyone is actually surprised that Guy snapped. So yeah. I was inspired by a line from another Richard Armitage thing, North & South: “You once accused me of not knowing what kind of man I'd rejected.” This is Marian, in limbo after death, finally understanding the man who killed her. My excuse to attempt an explanation of this character.
> 
> I apologize for any sort of out of character-ness that might come from my having watched relatively little of the show. I did my best, and this was mostly a fix-it fic for me, to work through my own issues.
> 
> Originally written Sept. 10, 2008

Disclaimer: Not mine.

 **  
Cruelty and Madness   
**

_Commit cruelty on a person long enough and the mind begins to go. - Sophocles, Antigone ___

It was dark, wherever she was. She knew on some level that she had, in fact, died on the sands of the Holy Land, and she tried to remember the specifics.

Robin's face.

No, that had come later.

Taunting Guy.

Yes, there was the memory.

Begging him, pleading with him to betray the Sheriff. Standing between him and the King, when he tried to do the only thing he could think of to end the confusion and then...

Telling him she would rather die than be with him. Telling him that she loved Robin, planned to marry Robin.

And then the horrible burning pain of the sword in her stomach, and the even worse pain of staring into his eyes as he jerked her closer, farther onto the blade.

She'd always been able to read his eyes so easily. It was how she knew exactly where to push to achieve her own ends. It was how she knew that behind that wall, there was a man. It was how she knew that despite everything, he really did love her, with every part of him that was capable of the emotion. It was how she knew that that particular part of him was larger than she'd ever thought.

And in those eyes she'd seen nothing but desperation, pain, and a blind need to end his own suffering.

It reminded her of a dog she'd known when she was a child. Its master had mistreated it, beaten and starved it, until one day it turned on the master.

The fire in her stomach was nothing to the pain of realizing she'd become the master she'd hated so much at the time.

Here in this dark place, she could see it clearly in a way she couldn't before.

Guy was not a peaceful man. She doubted that even in an ideal world he'd have been happy to be merely a landed knight, tending land and family. But in reality, a place where he had no land and no family, he was forced to be downright violent.

How could she really expect him to be anything but what he was? Without land or money, he was at the mercy of the sheriff. He had to be cruel and uncaring to survive. The sheriff would have killed him otherwise.

And hadn't he nearly? Every time Guy had saved her life, he'd risked his. When he'd saved her neck from the hangman's noose he'd had a dagger pressed to his.

And was it really surprising he was driven to find money, power, and security? Three things he'd never had, things that would take him out from under the thumb of the sheriff and maybe allow him to become that ideal person.

And then she came into his life, tried to tear down his walls and force him to be human without realizing that his walls kept them all safe. She saw his heart, and she pulled it from him, exploiting it and encouraging it by turns until he couldn't possibly know which way was up.

And the ironic thing, she realized, was that she came to love the heart she'd stolen, even as she knew that all she had to do was ask to have it given freely. If he'd truly been the heartless person he pretended to be, or she'd understood him, maybe she wouldn't be here in this cold place where she could feel nothing but a vague sense of curiosity about her final moments.

Robin's face... yes, she remembered that. All of them, around her, as she faded away.

And then this place. It didn't appear to be Heaven or Hell, though she wasn't sure which she was expecting.

If this was Heaven... then surely, she wouldn't be alone in this nothingness. Heaven was a place to be reunited with your loved ones who had passed on, and her parents certainly weren't here.

If this was Hell... well, she supposed that it could be Hell. She'd expected flames and torture, but maybe this was torture enough. Maybe having to see the consequences of her actions clearly over and over was her penance for destroying Guy, for bringing him to the brink of insanity and pushing him over.

Well, then, if this was Hell she had one comfort coming...

Surely he'd join her eventually.

Murder was a nearly unforgivable sin, after all.

 _Maybe that's what Hell is. You go mad. And all your demons come and get you just as fast as you can think them up. - Anne Rice, Memnoch the Devil ___


End file.
